


Badger & Phoenix

by LenoreFrost



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoptive Sisters, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hogwarts, Hogwarts First Year, Loyalty, Mentor Severus Snape, Post-Death in the Family, protective friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-13 16:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18472342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LenoreFrost/pseuds/LenoreFrost
Summary: Eleven-year-old Lacey Ravenwood and Olivia Varlin have been friends since they were five, but things aren't easy when they are sorted into different Houses at Hogwarts.  As they grow together as witches, their friendship is tested by encounters with dementors, youthful romances, Hogwarts drama, dark magic, and worse.  Along the way, they learn from a werewolf, witness the Tri-Wizard Tournament, enlist in Dumbledore's Army, and defend each other as Hogwarts gets more and more dangerous.





	1. Loyalty

Chapter One - Lacey

 

            I’m terrible at making friends.

            As Olivia and I got on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, I accidentally shoved two people, Olivia elbowed me once and told me I was glaring at someone, and I told a reasonably cute older boy to sod off when he made eyes at Olivia.  Olivia laughed all this off, thankfully, because if I lost her as a friend, I’d never find another one.

            “Lacey, you can’t tell everyone to ‘sod off!’” Olivia exclaimed, giggling as I slid the compartment door shut.

            “Why not?  There will be plenty of cute boys at Hogwarts.  Pick one that’s less creepy.”

            “He wasn’t that creepy,” she protested, pulling her strawberry blond hair back into the start of a braid.  She can do French-style braids to herself.  That is talent.

            I raised an eyebrow at her and gestured to the compartment door.  “He was standing there staring for a good five seconds before he said anything.  That is creepy.”

            “Maybe he’s just socially awkward.”

            “A guy that looks like that should not be that socially awkward.  He was staring.  Creepily.”

            She giggled again, her blue eyes flashing.  “If you insist.  Maybe I’ll find a boy in our own House when we get sorted.”

            I couldn’t help biting my lower lip nervously.  We’d been talking about going off to Hogwarts together since we were five years old and had always dreamed of being in the same House, but personality-wise, we had very little in common.  “You seem so sure we’ll be in the same House.”

            “What makes you think we won’t be?”

            “Because you’re kind and brave and socially-acceptable.  I’m a bull in a china shop by comparison.”

            “You are not!” she squealed, giving me a shove in the shoulder.  When she realized I wasn’t entirely joking, she softened and dropped her half-braided hair.  “Lacey.  You’re not.  You’ve been the kindest person in the world to me, and the bravest.  Maybe not socially-acceptable, but since when do you give a rat’s arse about that?”

            I shrugged, digging the sole of my sneaker into the carpet.  Growing up together, I was more likely to punch someone than “play nice”, especially if the person in question ever did something against Olivia, and that disposition had never bothered me before.  But growing up in quiet Yorkshire, where Olivia and I spent most of our time playing in the field with my family’s sheep or chasing each other on the moors, it was hard to care what other people thought.  Now, I’d have roommates, classmates I couldn’t escape from, teachers breathing down my neck everywhere I went.  Very little scared me, but this at the very least made me nervous.

            Olivia gripped my hand in hers and I met her eyes as she looked fiercely at me.  “It will be fine.  Even if we do end up being in different Houses, we’ll still be just as close as we are now.”

            “We’d have different classes, different common rooms, different tables at meals…”

            “We’d see each other in some classes and we’d be studying the same material, so doing our homework together as we always have.  We can hang out outside just like at home or in the library when it’s rainy instead of in our common rooms.  And I don’t think it’s a rule that we can’t eat together, just most people eat with their Houses.”

            I sighed and squeezed her hand.  “I hope you’re right.”

            “I am,” she said, smirking.  Then, she released me and returned to her braiding.

            From my trunk, I retrieved the copy of the _Daily Prophet_ I’d swiped from my parents’ breakfast table and unfolded it.  “Do you think they’re going to catch him?” I asked Olivia, pointing to the screaming face of Sirius Black on the front page.

            “Merlin, I hope so,” she said, cringing.

            “The way I see it, if the bloke can escape Azkaban prison and the dementors and that lot, he should have no trouble disappearing in the countryside.”

            Olivia shuddered.  “Don’t talk like that, Lacey, it gives me the creeps.  And what are dementors?”

            I peered over my newspaper at her and waggled my eyebrows, using my creepiest voice.  “They’re evil creatures in black cloaks that suck all the happiness out of you.  If they kiss you, they steal your soul.”

            “Ugh,” Olivia groaned.  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

            “I’m not, actually.”

            “Ugh.  How can you read that rubbish anyway?”

            “I like to know what’s going on.  You sometimes have to read between the lines with the _Prophet_ , but I like it anyway.”

            Olivia produced a slim paperback from her purse and cracked it open.  “I prefer a good book.”

            I smiled.  “You’ve read _Wuthering Heights_ half a hundred times.”

            “Never enough!”

            We quietly read together for most of the train ride until dark began to fall.  I was just finishing the puzzle on the back page when the train jerked to a sudden stop, sending me pitching forward and onto the opposite seat.  Olivia’s eyes were wide when I sat up to look to her and we both spun to look out the window.  Outside the train, darkness reigned, helped along by violet clouds and pouring rain.  The lights flickered out and then we could see dark shapes moved amongst the rain.  My pulse began to race in my head and my eyes went wide.  “Liv,” I whispered.  “I think those are dementors.”

            “What?!” she hissed.  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

            I shook my head silently.

            Olivia’s hand shook as she rested it on the window and wiped frost from the glass to look outside better.  “Okay.  Dementors.  What do we do, evil creature expert?”

            “Uh….”  I wasn’t an expert, not by a long shot.  I did have a book my mum had given me last year called _Dark Creatures and Their Dark Origins_ that I liked to read before bed, but it hardly made me an expert.  “Well, the best thing would be a Patronus charm, but there’s no way we’re going to be able to do that.  Just think happy things.  Really happy things.  They’re attracted to fear and despair.”

            “I thought they sucked happiness out?”

            “Patronuses are made out of happy memories and they’re what drives away dementors.”

            “Okay.  Happy memories it is.”

            The train shuddered around us and we looked to each other with wide eyes.  “Happy memories,” I whispered.  Olivia nodded and I ransacked my memory bank for something truly, blissfully happy.

            I came up with the perfect day Olivia and I had had the summer before last, back when her parents were still alive and we were both more carefree.  We’d laid in the heath playing with wildflowers and looking up at the clouds.  It had been so perfectly peaceful and quiet, the only sounds the sheep bahhing in the distance and the soft breeze playing through the wildflowers.

            I held tight to the memory and opened my eyes to find Olivia grimacing and rubbing her arms against the cold.  I could see our breath now, that was how cold the train had suddenly gotten.  “Liv!” I hissed.  “Do you have a memory?”

            She shook her head hard and didn’t say anything.  She didn’t have to.  I knew all her favorite memories were with her parents.  Her parents who burned alive in their house last spring, while Olivia watched from the front lawn.

            Silence reigned in the train.  Frost crackled along the glass compartment door and then, I watched in horror as a dark figure began to glide past.  Without a second thought, I shoved Olivia into the corner, moved in front of her, and thought as hard as I could about that perfect summer day.  The breeze, the sheep, the flowers, Liv’s smile, the sun warm on our faces….

            The dementor hesitated, sniffing the air, but glided on.

            A matter of minutes later, the dementor glided past again the other way, much faster this time, and the lights came back on.  There was the sound of many footsteps, and then, mercifully, the train started up again.

            “Bloody hell,” I moaned, my muscles turning to water.  I sank to the floor of the compartment and Olivia wrapped her arms around me and pulled me up onto the seat.

            “Lacey!” she hissed.  “Lacey, are you okay?”

            My hands were shaking, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t seem to breathe normally.  “Bloody hell,” I said again.  “That was terrifying.”

            “I wish I hadn’t been completely useless,” she said softly.  “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

            “It’s not your fault, Liv.”

            We passed the remainder of the journey very quietly, dressing in our new school robes together as we neared Hogsmeade.  The journey across the lake in the boats was somber.  All of the first-years, if not all of the students in general, seemed as shaken by the appearance of the dementors as we were.  Between the memory of the dementors and the fear of being sorted into separate Houses, I barely heard the instructions we were given as we arrived at the castle and barely registered that the Sorting Hat was singing, much less the words that it sang.  I watched, shaking, as Maria Baxter, Antonia Dregston, Polly Featherbright, Asotria Greengrass, Kevin Rasmussen, and a dozen others were sorted, but I didn’t process where they were sorted to. 

When Olivia gave me a shove, I realized my name had been called and walked up to the stool where Professor McGonagall waited with the Sorting Hat.  I sat awkwardly and the hat was placed on my head.  In that moment, I was thankful for my thick brown curls that kept the hat from falling down my face.

“ _Hmm…_ ” a voice whispered in my head.  Or maybe _around_ my head.  “ _Very brave, yes, but loyalty…that’s your bit, isn’t it?  Yes, loyalty._ HUFFLEPUFF!”

Cheers erupted and I stood as Professor McGonagall retrieved the hat.  Olivia grinned at me and cheered and that was enough to get me down the steps and to the table where the Hufflepuffs sat with their yellow ties.

Derek Rivers and Romilda Vane were sorted next, and then it was Olivia’s turn.  The hat shifted on her head and I wondered what it was saying to her, crossing all my fingers under the table that it would send her to Hufflepuff with me.  After what felt like ages, the tear in the hat opened and it called out, “GRYFFINDOR!”

My heart sank.

Olivia smiled as the cheers erupted and stood, then her eyes went directly to me, molten blue.  She stepped down from the dais and rushed to my side to give me a firm hug, then she sat directly across the aisle from me at the Gryffindor table.

I took a deep breath in and out, smiled at her, and tried to be happy for her.  I should have known someone as brave and bulletproof as Olivia would be a Gryffindor.  It really wasn’t a surprise when I thought back on the girl I’d grown up with.  Olivia had been the one to befriend me when my family first started renting her parents’ land.  She had been the one to return bullies’ insults directed at me with far better comebacks of her own, no hesitation.  She had been the one to break her arm swinging across the creek and laugh it off.  She had been the one to fight me as I held her back, to give her all to try and run back to her burning home, back to her parents’ screams to try and save them.  She would do well in Gryffindor and if a girl as strong as her didn’t belong there, no one did.

When the sorting was done and the food was served, I tried to make nice with the Hufflepuffs sitting around me and they tried to make nice back, but it was more than a little strained.  More than once, I looked over my shoulder to make sure Olivia was faring better than me and she was.  She seemed to be making fast friends with a red-haired girl who looked a year older, a dark-haired girl I remembered being sorted as Romilda Vane, and a pale boy with a camera.  I breathed a tiny sigh of relief and focused on the pudding that was appearing.  At least Hogwarts knew how to put on a good feast.

The Hufflepuff common room was across the Entrance Hall, down the stairs, and to the right, just past a portrait of some fruit we were told hid the kitchens.  The common room was dark, but not gloomy.  It was cozy and homey, with a huge fireplace, squishy black sofas and armchairs, fluffy gold rugs, ornate tapestries on the walls, and dancing candlesticks floating in mid-air.  My trunk was already at the foot of a bed that had been marked for me, along with yellow-trimmed robes, a yellow and black striped tie, and a grey jumper with the Hufflepuff crest on the breast.  As I held the jumper and fingered the crest, I smiled a tiny bit and thought of Olivia fitting so well in Gryffindor and what the hat had said about me.  _Loyalty…that’s your bit, isn’t it?_

The hat was right.  I was loyal.  And I was a great friend to Olivia.  And being a Hufflepuff meant that I could be proud of those things as my defining traits.  I was being recognized as being good at being me.  We weren’t in the same House, but we would stay friends because I would make sure we did, because I was loyal to Olivia and that would never change.

And that made me very proud.


	2. Empty Cauldrons

Chapter Two - Olivia

 

            I hardly slept that first night out of worry for Lacey.  She had looked so miserable at the feast and I could tell she wasn’t hitting it off with her Housemates.  I hoped that things had changed that night as she settled into the Hufflepuff dorms, but still, I worried.  We were normally attached at the hip and, while I was good at making nice with people, Lacey was not.  In fact, she was more likely to pick a fight than make a friend.  But maybe in Hufflepuff, where all of her Housemates had similar qualities of kindness and loyalty, maybe there she’d be able to connect with people.  At the very least, maybe the other Hufflepuffs would be patient with her.

            I watched a golden sunrise seep across the Hogwarts grounds from Gryffindor Tower, watched it turn to pink and violet and blue.  The light glinted off the Black Lake like diamonds and set the Forbidden Forest in a blue-green glow.  I showered before my roommates had made it out of bed, then dressed in my new school robes and Gryffindor jumper and tie.  It might be too warm for the jumper today, but I didn’t care.  I was too proud and eager to show off my status as a Gryffindor.

            _You are a tough girl, aren’t you?_ the hat had said.  _Tough as nails.  And so brave, so willing to defend the people you care for.  I think it’s quite clear where you belong._

            Tough as nails and so brave.  I hadn’t been so proud since my parents saw me off for my first day of school so many years ago.

            The Great Hall was teeming with students when I came down for breakfast.  I sat with my roommates, Romilda Vane, Antonia Dregston, and Felicity Jones, and dug into the eggs and toast hungrily.  Lacey was nowhere to be seen as of yet, so I made a point to talk with my roommates now in case Lacey needed a friend when she came down.

            Lacey at last appeared, her dark curls wild and loose down her back, her white shirt tucked neatly into her grey skirt and her yellow and black tie done perfectly.  Her robes were a little large because she liked them that way and had asked Madame Malkin to let them down a bit on that day in Diagon Alley.  She looked uncertain, her grey eyes darting about the Great Hall until they rested on me.  She smiled wide at me, then sat at the Hufflepuff table near the first-years and tucked in to breakfast.

            I watched the teachers talking up at the Head Table.  I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at them last night with all of the pressure and chaos, but I did now.  Professor Dumbledore looked every bit as wise and grand in reality as he did on my Chocolate Frog collectors’ cards at home.  The witch to his left, Professor McGonagall, looked a bit like she had swallowed a lemon and seemed a bit terrifying at the sorting ceremony last night, but had been congenial enough to the Gryffindors afterward, no doubt playing favorites as our Head of House.  I also noted a gloomy black-haired teacher, the enormous Hagrid who had led us across the lake last night, and a teacher with greying hair and a number of deep scars across his face.

            Just then, a swarm of owls came in through the upper windows of the Hall and swooped down, delivering post to all the students.  Everyone seemed to be getting at the very least a scroll and one dropped in front of me too.  I unrolled it eagerly and found my class schedule.  Immediately, I shot up, bid farewell to my roommates, and went to the Hufflepuff table, dropping down beside Lacey.

            “What classes do you have today?” I asked her eagerly.

            Lacey dropped her fork unceremoniously and picked up her scroll instead, unrolling it as she chewed.  “Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Potions.”

            “We have Defense and Herbology together!” I noted, grinning.  My eyes flicked between our schedules, checking the rest of the week.  “And we’ll have Astronomy together too!  So it’ll be Potions, Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Charms that we don’t have together.”

            “But we have those free periods together,” Lacey said, pointing out two free periods.  “That’s good.”

            “You’re right.  See, it’ll be fine.”

            Lacey smiled and gave me a side-hug.

            We walked to Defense Against the Dark Arts together and sat side-by-side, pulling out our textbooks and watching as the teacher with the scars entered the room.  Whispers broke out as the students noticed his face and I winced on his behalf, but he ignored them gracefully and moved to the front of the room.  “I understand that this is your first class here at Hogwarts.  Congratulations to you all for being here,” he said warmly.  “I am Professor Lupin, and I will be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.  Let’s begin by going over the syllabus….”

            Professor Lupin described a series of spells we would be learning, a few of which Lacey’s parents had used in front of us before, like _Lumos_.  He also went into great detail about a list of dark creatures we would be encountering and learning about.  It seemed that most of the learning would be practical in class, and for that I was grateful.  Lacey had a habit of getting antsy and distracted in lectures.

            Towards the second half of class, Professor Lupin described and demonstrated the _Vermillious_ charm, shooting red sparks into the air.  He then levitated a cloaked dummy into the center of the room, asked us all to stand, and magicked the desks and chairs to the sides.  “ _Vermillious_ is useful for many things, but today we’ll be using it as a minor dueling spell.  Form a line and you will take turns casting the _Vermillious_ charm at the dummy.  Your goal is to cast a jet of red light strong enough to knock the dummy back.  Come now, form a line.”

            Already near the center of the room, Lacey side-stepped behind me and nudged me forward.  I grinned and took the lead, stepping up to form the head of the line.  Professor Lupin smiled at me and gestured to the dummy.  I raised my wand and, imagining red light and remembering the exact way Professor Lupin had cast the spell, I cried the incantation, “ _Vermillious!_ ”

            Red sparks jetted from the end of my wand right into the dummy’s chest, sending it skidding backwards and bending over before it righted itself.  I couldn’t help a grin of triumph and Lacey clapped me on the shoulder.  “Well done!” Professor Lupin exclaimed.  “You’re a talented young witch.  What’s your name?”

            “Olivia Varlin, sir.”

            “Well, Miss Varlin, thank you for an excellent demonstration.  Who’s next?”

            Glowing with pride, I stepped back and watched Lacey shoot red light into the dummy’s face, sending it rocking backward so dramatically that it hit the floor and bounced.  Professor Lupin laughed, watched the dummy right itself, then said, “Let’s try aiming for the chest.  It’s a larger target for when your opponent is farther away from you.  And it’ll keep my dummy alive for the next class.”

            Lacey had just smirked.

            Professor Lupin assigned us a short reading on _Vermillious_ , then we were off to Herbology.  In the greenhouses, Lacey pointed to the stout witch with the pointed hat who was preparing an assortment of strange-looking plants at the front of the class.  “That’s Professor Sprout,” she said.  “She’s the Head of Hufflepuff House.”

            “How is she?”

            “I like her.  She seems nice and pretty low-key.”

            “Come around, class!” Professor Sprout called.  “Welcome to Herbology!  I am Professor Sprout and today I’ll be introducing you to some of the species you’ll be learning about this term.  Come closer!  Most of them don’t bite.”

            Professor Sprout was nice and even bubbly, especially when talking about her beloved plants, some of which, she said, would eventually find their way to the Potions storeroom.  When the class was over,  I gave Lacey a quick hug and promised to meet her in the library that evening to work on our _Vermillious_ reading together.

            If the Defense Against the Dark Arts class was fun and inviting and if the Herbology class was warm and bright, Potions was the opposite of all those things.  The class was held in the dungeons, where only small windows at the top of one wall leaked sunlight in, and where the stones held in the chill.  I sat nervously beside Romilda Vane and produced my Potions textbook just as the classroom door slammed.  The black-haired gloomy professor I’d seen this morning stalked in, his robes billowing behind him like bats’ wings.  “There will be no foolish wand-waving in this class, no silly incantations,” he snarled as he came to the front of the classroom.  “I suspect the lot of you are no more than first-year dunderheads with heads like empty cauldrons, but in any event, I hope that by the time you leave this room, you will have some degree of appreciation for the subtle art that is potion-making.”

            I couldn’t help cringing even as I stared up at him in something approaching fear.  What had the world done to this man that he so clearly hated students and hated teaching?  Surely someone so bitter didn’t belong in a school.

            The professor’s flinty black eyes snapped around the room, causing a few of my classmates to flinch.  Then, he said coldly, “My name is Professor Snape and you will address me as such, always, and with respect.  You will not remove you wand from your bag in this classroom unless I expressly allow it.  You will follow all instructions _exactly_ if you want to leave this room in one piece.  Failure to follow instructions will result in exploding cauldrons, serious injuries, and detentions.  Understood?  Excellent.  Let’s begin.  Wormwood.  Professor Sprout will no doubt be teaching you much about the cultivating of wormwood and its properties.  It will also be of critical importance here.”

            Professor Snape flicked his wand at the blackboard and the chalk began writing in a spiky handwriting that I had a feeling I was going to come to know well.  I grabbed my quill and ink and began rapidly writing down every word that appeared on the board _exactly._   I had always done well in school and I didn’t want to fail here, especially not with a professor who fully expected me to fail.  I enjoyed defying expectations and I was determined to defy his.  I was not a dunderhead, my cauldron was not empty, and I could prove it.

            What was more, I didn’t like how obviously unhappy this professor was.  The fact that he was a professor at all suggested he enjoyed something about being a Hogwarts teacher, or at least he had at some point.  Maybe he just needed a good student or two to remind him of what he liked about teaching.

            Professor Snape assigned us a massive essay on wormwood and then I was hurrying off to the library, determined to read the first chapter of my Potions text a few times before the next lesson.  Lacey wasn’t there yet, so I bent to my task at a table near the windows, eager to soak up a few rays after the last hour in the dungeons. 

            “My cauldron is not empty,” I mumbled to myself, determined to prove Professor Snape wrong.


End file.
